Using Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Somatic Psychotherapy (SP) to Treat C-PTSD
At The Annex, we don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all treatment. We specialize in working with individuals who have lived through chronic relational trauma and are now living with deep attachment wounds sometimes labeled as Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), Mood Disorders, and Personality Disorders. Instead of reducing people to a diagnosis, we focus on the underlying systems, embedded interactional sequences, and chronic unmet needs that have shaped their lives to conceptualize the entire person.
Our clinical model conceptualizes the symptoms of C-PTSD and Personality Disorders as symptoms of deep attachment traumas, and believe that all behaviors make sense when you see them as attempts to protect one’s self from further pain.
Oftentimes, people with attachment traumas struggle with achieving and maintaining safety, balance, and peace in their lives due to over-functioning protection attempts—they want to escape pain at any cost! Our model helps individuals to find stabilization and regulation through DBT, and once clients are able to regulate, we lead them into deeper healing through IFS and SP. These aren’t just buzzwords. They are an intentional integration of evidence based therapy modalities woven together into the fabric of an Attachment philosophy.
Why DBT, IFS, SP, and the Attachment Philosophy?
Many of our clients arrive at The Annex feeling exhausted, disconnected, and unsure if change is even possible. We start with DBT to provide a critical foundation for behavioral and emotional stabilization. Through structured skills training, clients learn to regulate behaviors, establish safety, and manage distressing emotions. While many DBT programs require a long-term commitment to DBT treatment, we offer DBT as a brief focused intervention designed to promote rapid stabilization and lay the groundwork for further therapeutic process. Emerging research supports the effectiveness of brief DBT intervention, indicating that briefer treatment durations can achieve comparable long-term benefits (McMain, et. al., 2022)
Once stabilization is maintained, IFS and SP offer complementary pathways for deeper healing. IFS helps clients to explore their unique inner-world of protective, polarized, and burdened “parts” of themselves, fostering internal connection and integration (Schwartz, 2021), while SP supports the release of trauma held in the body through mindful tracking of somatic patterns (Ogden & Fisher, 2015). Data provide validation for the approach, as it addresses both triggers of complex trauma: physiological (body) and interpersonal (relationship), allowing clients to heal from the inside out with greater coherence and self-leadership (Classen, et. al., 2020).
DBT, IFS, and SP are intentionally integrated within a larger Attachment philosophy that serves as the golden thread tying them all together. Attachment theory believes that humans are biologically wired for attachment, relationship history shapes our internal models of self and others, and attachment patterns influence lifelong emotional and relational functioning—but can change (Bowlby, 2008).
Disorganized Attachment, Not “Disordered” Personality
We specialize in treatment for clients that are often diagnosed with a Personality Disorder, but at The Annex, we frame this through the lens of disorganized attachment. Our clients have often developed highly adaptive survival strategies and sophisticated ways of protecting themselves. We are a highly structured treatment team, trained to create a safe container where our clients can unlearn the now unhelpful survival strategies, and learn how to meet their needs in more effective ways. Couples, Family, & Parenting sessions are provided to ensure the entire system can shed old survival dynamics and embrace healthy systemic functioning.
A Creative & Experiential Approach
Healing doesn’t only happen in talk-therapy. We include experiential therapies to activate diverse mechanisms of change. Clients participate in EMDR, breathwork, animal assisted interventions, nature and field work, and creative intensives that help integrate lasting change. And we do this in a space that feels more like a therapeutic sanctuary than a hospital. Our residential setting is designed for compassion, connection, clarity, and courage.
The Annex: A Place to Come Home to Yourself
Treatment at The Annex is intensive, relational, and intentionally curated for your individual needs. Our team of veteran clinicians holds a compassionate container that is both boundaried and bold. We believe in the nervous system’s capacity to reorganize. We believe in earned secure attachment and our clients are looking for a place where they can finally be met.
Welcome to that place.
Reference List:
Bowlby, J. (2008). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. Basic books.
Classen, C. C., Hughes, L., Clark, C., Hill Mohammed, B., Woods, P., & Beckett, B. (2021). A pilot RCT of a body-oriented group therapy for complex trauma survivors: an adaptation of sensorimotor psychotherapy. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 22(1), 52-68.
McMain, S. F., Chapman, A. L., Kuo, J. R., Dixon-Gordon, K. L., Guimond, T. H., Labrish, C., Isaranuwatchai, W., & Streiner, D. L. (2022). The effectiveness of 6 versus 12 months of dialectical behavior therapy for borderline personality disorder: A noninferiority randomized clinical trial. Psychotherapy and psychosomatics, 91(6), 382-397.
Ogden, P. & Fisher, J. (2015). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment. New York: W. W. Norton.
Schwartz, R. (2021). No bad parts: Healing trauma and restoring wholeness with the internal family systems model. Sounds True.
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?
Our dedicated team is committed to supporting clients and their families throughout their therapeutic journey.
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